Ex-texas coach Beard will lead Mississippi
Mississippi hired Chris Beard as its men’s basketball coach just over two months after Texas fired him following a domestic violence arrest.
The Rebels announced Beard’s hiring Monday and will introduce him Tuesday.
Beard is a four-time conference coach of the year and was the national coach of the year in 2019. But his two-year tenure at his alma mater ended abruptly in January, though felony domestic charges were ultimately dismissed Feb. 15.
Texas suspended Beard after his Dec. 12 arrest and fired him three weeks later.
He was arrested when his fiancee, Randi Trew, called 911 and told officers that Beard strangled, bit and hit her during a confrontation in his home.
She later said that he didn’t choke her and was defending himself. . . .
Georgia Tech moved quickly to put a new leader in charge of its struggling men’s program, hiring longtime NBA guard Damon
Stoudamire as its coach.
The 49-year-old comes to the ACC school from the Boston Celtics, with whom he had been an assistant coach since 2021. . . .
Felton Spencer, who set Louisville single-season and career records in field goal percentage before playing
12 years in the NBA, died at 55. Spencer’s sister, Tammy
Pollock, announced his death, and the school confirmed it. No cause of death was given. . . . Temple men’s coach Aaron
Mckie is out after four years and zero NCAA tournament appearances. He will become a special adviser to the athletic department, the school said. He went 52-56 in four seasons. . . . Georgetown women’s coach
James Howard will not have his contract renewed after four consecutive losing seasons, the school said. Howard went 66-108, including 14-17 this season. . . . Citing her health, Suzy
Merchant stepped down as the women’s coach at Michigan State.
SOCCER
Gary Lineker will return to the airwaves after the BBC reversed the soccer great’s suspension for a post on Twitter that had criticized the British government’s new asylum policy.
Britain’s national broadcaster was forced to scrap much of its weekend programming after commentators, analysts and players refused to appear as a show of support for Lineker, who was suspended Friday after he compared the Conservative government’s language about migrants with that used in Nazi Germany. The BBC said the tweet breached its impartiality rules. . . .
Russia was invited to participate in the inaugural Central Asian Football
Association Championships in June. The country’s teams have been barred from European and FIFA competitions since it invaded Ukraine in early 2022.
TENNIS
Defending champion Taylor Fritz easily got past Sebastian
Baez, 6-1, 6-2, in the third round of the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, Calif.
In women’s action, Caroline Garcia outlasted Leylah
Fernandez, 6-4, 6-7 (7-5), 6-1. . . .
The U.S. Tennis Association announced Bob Bryan’s appointment as Davis Cup captain, replacing Mardy Fish.
His first matches in charge will be in the group stage in September.
MISC.
A Vermont religious school that withdrew its girls’ basketball team from a playoff game because a transgender student was playing on the opposing squad won’t be able to participate in future tournaments, the Vermont Principals’ Association said.
Mid Vermont Christian School in White River Junction forfeited the Feb. 21 game, saying it believed the transgender player
“jeopardizes the fairness of the game and the safety of our players.” . . .
Indycar Series driver Jack
Harvey has not been cleared to race following a hard wreck in the season opener in Florida. Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing said
Juri Vips was testing for Harvey at Barber Motorsports Park in Alabama. . . . Dick Fosbury, the lanky leaper who revamped the technical discipline of high jump and won an Olympic gold medal with his “Fosbury flop,” died at 76 on Sunday after a recurrence with lymphoma, according to his publicist, Ray Schulte.